Crystallized
by DustyDreamer
Summary: Sarah was beyond freezing but for him, the window would always be open.


**A/N:** Happy Halloween all! I know it's not until tomorrow, but I'll be at a party (I'm going as Harley Quinn *beams*) so I won't be able to upload it tomorrow night. I wrote this to be something a little more sinister at first, but I think a less violent approach would be better. I really wanted to write something where Jareth doesn't handle losing too well, and I was just wondering how he might punish Sarah, when this came into mind. So enjoy!

Oh and if it seems like Sarah's train of thought keeps switching tracks, don't worry. She's practically insane here, so that's a good thing :) DD Trick or treat anyone?

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'Sarah, open this door now!'

'Sarah, are you listening to me?'

'Sarah I know you can hear me!'

'Sarah?'

'Sarah!'

Sarah, Sarah, Sarah...

Isn't it strange how every time you hear a name repeated, it becomes less of a 'who' and more of a 'what'? Sarah felt the problem didn't end in her name. It felt like she had lost who she was, that fact that her name sounded inanimate was just an extra portion of hopelessness.

She struggled on in her search for who she was, alone. Oh yes, very much alone. What would Karen think if Sarah replied to her exactly how she felt like replying?

_'No, I won't open the door. I can't. I'm not Sarah. Sarah can't come to the door right now.'_

Sarah had heard that last sentence many times before then, every time someone called around for her, she heard it echo through the house, up the stairs, down the hall, and into her room. Sounds could get in to her room, they flew straight in through the gap at the base of her door; they were the only thing to get in. Her door was locked, and had been for some time.

The last time she'd had that door open was, well...

... when was it?

A while ago. Days, months, years? She truthfully had no idea. Completely uncertain of it, as a matter of fact. Completely uncertain- constant change- free love. Such fun contradictions. Sarah smiled. She herself, was one huge contradiction. Her life, funny phrase to use she mused, being neither lived in nor hers, was full of strange puzzle pieces. She had never had much patience with puzzles when she was little, they were so serious; serious fun, completely uncertain...

What a joke it was to sit there solving something when you already knew what you would end up with as your prize. The picture was right there on the box, so why bother recreating it? It just seemed to pointless, and what really badgered her with them was that there was such a dull routine to follow. First the four corners. What were the four corners of her life? They would be at the very edge, holding everything else together. Her body, that seemed quite important, for without it, how would she have been able to...

..to what? She'd ran somewhere once. Had it come in handy then? Probably, she figured. Without legs and feet how could she possibly have run anywhere?

'Well, come on feet.'

Her mind? Yes that was important to, you needed your mind to do everything, otherwise you would never know your were doing anything. Yes, mind and body would definitely be two of Sarah's corners. Her feelings too. They would be right there, wedged in place on the very edge of the puzzle box as she rested on it. She would bundle them all up together, wrap them up nicely, fold the gift wrap, tie the ribbon, and stick on the label 'emotions'.

So...that was three corners down. She needed a fourth now, or she could always have a triangular puzzle...

No, that would never work, for Sarah secretly resented anyone who tried to make things different just for the sake of being awkward. Sarah knew different, she knew that things were what they were, changing anything out of your normal control just messed everything up. Where was the innocence in that?

One final word sprung into the distant haziness of her mind, jumping right to the forefront with all the grace of a skillful gymnast.

Dreams...Her dreams...Did Sarah dream?...She only remembered the nightmares, they were the only thing that stood out now. Forcing herself to think about pleasant, wishful dreams now was like asking the devil to play fancy dress. It just wouldn't work. Her memory wouldn't work. She knew her dreams would be a corner in her life though, they held up an awfully heavy part of Sarah.

You know that saying, the world is on your shoulders? Well for Sarah that meant this world and the other world. The world she'd refused to forget but found it harder and harder to hold on. It felt like her hands were slipping from whatever part she still kept of it, and slowly her fingers were slipping, one by one.

Sarah was beyond freezing. She had become a effigy frozen from the inside out. There is a point where your body mirrors every painful thing it's ever felt back to you, like a flashback scene, and what you feel is something that just breaks you up. She was perched on the very edge of the bed, her small, blue toes peek-a-booing out from under the thin blanket, when the pain hit her. It just rocked around in her head, echoing back and forth though, unlike a real echo, it did not fade away. Instead she shivered more frequently, her skin erupting in goosebumps with every breath. Sarah could vaguely register a frustrated sigh as Karen's fist repeated it's knocking against her bedroom door.

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Karen?

Karen Who?

Who was Karen... she remembered the name, but not the person. Did Karen love her? Hate her? She just couldn't remember.

Karen! She remembered who she was. Sarah pictured curls of ginger hair piled on an angry looking head, she could not help comparing her to some funny bird she'd once read about at school. A dodo, her stepmother had the face of a dodo. Sarah smiled for a minute, lost in subconscious prejudice against her stepmother.

Sarah's smiled disappeared, what did she look like then? What was Sarah's face like? She couldn't remember. It had been so long...

_A young girl danced around her room, waving a magic wand over all her faithful friends - even those who had tried to take her head off - and make-believed them all turning into beautiful creatures. Music kept playing in the background, dance dance dance, Sarah reached over to Hoggle, he was closest to her he of them all, and hugged him tightly, whispering a promise to him in his ear that she would never forget, that she would always need him. And he, in turn, promised he would never let her forget, that he would always be there, always within the reach of her imagination. It was then, right as Sarah beamed adoringly at her friend, that the window crashed open. The doors were flung aside, the glass shattering in it's frame, some travelling far enough to graze Sarah's face, thought they did not cut her. The owl flew with purpose, his strong white wings flapping with nothing short of vengeance. Sarah briefly dared to catch his eye, and all she saw there was hatred. Stark, cold, raw hatred, and it chilled her to the bone._

_'What do you want?' she half whispered, half screamed. It's had to imagine such a sound, but it was the only way Sarah could talk at the time as she watched the snowy owl swoop. She stood strong and determined like him, the main difference though, human/bird issues aside, was that Sarah, unlike Jareth, was dangerously afraid. Dangerous afraid - completely uncertain. Her eyes became crystallised by the magic he carried around in his aura, the bird literally had put a spell on her. She watched, helpless to stop him, as the bird flew straight into the mirror. For a full moment she did not realize what was happening. She thought he was simply lost, confused, and was aiming for the mirror because he could see an identical owl flying at him. But realisation dawned slowly upon Sarah, her frozen state awakened with a fall of a million glass shards. Her mirror crumpled to the floor like a fallen warrior, never to fight again. She heard a scream from downstairs. Then a scream upstairs. It was an awful wailing sound, just outside her door, screaming._

_Sarah!_

Sarah?

Sarah... and the knocking continued.

She remembered that night all too well, though could not form new memories, nor resurrect old ones, since the last shard of that mirror fell.

'You'll never forget...' a distant familiar - completely uncertain - voice sang. The melody moved as if it were a phantom through her head. Where had she heard that voice before? Where?

Sarah was dying. It was sometime in the middle of winter, probably the coldest day of the year, but then again she would have said that everyday anyway, and she was perched on her bed, naked apart from the thin blanket that her toes no fully emerged from. Their blue nails and snow white skin giving them the look of pale Eskimos creeping out in the snow, leaving the safety of their igloos. Sarah leaned against empty air, imagining herself wrapping up warm. Why couldn't she though? Why was it so hard to put on something warm, to put on anything?She shivered involuntarily, somehow the cold was helping her, somehow she couldn't quite place. It just numbed her through and through, not that she knew why numbness worked, perhaps it wasn't presence of that empty feeling, but rather the absence of every other bad thing.

Bad things did not help, they only ever made the puzzle even worse. A bad piece that tricks you into thinking it fits somewhere, then you just screw up the rest of the picture. All because of one stupid fucking piece! That's what bad feelings were to Sarah, sadness, loss, guilt, anger, they were all misfits in her life, and she just didn't have time for them. There she went again, her life. It's not hers. Someone took it from her a long long time ago. Someone blue, someone green, someone pale and clear, like a crystal. Someone so evil. they were almost impossible to resist. Everything seemed possible, nothing was what it seemed. So it was all impossible?

But when everything seemed to be what it wasn't then...

Sarah shook her head to clear it from these confusing thoughts. She continued to shake it long after she'd forgotten why she had started, shaking and shaking. Oh wait, it wasn't her. She hadn't moved.

Slowly letting the frost lull her back, until she rested between asleep and awake, Sarah conceded to hand any remaining control over: leaning slightly more towards asleep. And though it killed her to do it, she did not move. Her eyes looked past the window as the curtains flapped jumpily about it. She saw everything she wanted outside, in the sky. She saw freedom and peace, she saw the moon and the twinkling diamonds that were the stars. How beautiful they all were, like the morning sun inviting the dawn to break. How beautiful indeed. She saw it all, everything. Except the one thing she wanted most. The thing she needed. There were no white wings, no sparkling magic dust, no dancing, no faeries, no goblins, no castle, no friends. No meaning. She watched for him always and why she watched the window needed to remain open. He needed to know he was welcome. She watched forever. She would wait forever then wait it all over again.

Wait for it all. Wait for it. Wait for... what? What was she waiting for? She cried silent tears. Sarah looked up at the stars, knowing they were probably within reach of her very fingertips, she just couldn't bring herself to lift her arm up. It remained pinned down by her bare side. She seemed to be a voodoo doll-based human, and someone...somewhere...had left her frozen in this position, left her there and forgot.

She would never forget. Why did that seem so important. It sounded like a promise of sorts.

Sarah stared, waiting for the owl to come. He would come and fix her mirror. He would rebuild her life, fit the puzzle together, and let her see the picture.

The window remained open. For him, it would always stay open.

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Somewhere in the distant underground, a Goblin King played with a crystal, making it dance around. Watching as the trapped girl could do nothing from her small prison. Small, and growing smaller everyday. Because secretly, he wanted her to die. He wanted her to die, but also to live. He would watch her freeze and want nothing more than to wrap her in his arms. Warm and safe. Alive and well. Sarah would never again be any of those things.

It seemed cruel, it was cruel. She seemed lost and trapped, and Sarah was.

It seemed like this was too cruel to her for it to go on forever.

Nothing was what it seemed.


End file.
